Stories from Work-6

 I have many weaknesses and foot-in-the-mouth disease is one of them. Let me share a few examples.

I joined SAIL in 1997. After 45 days of induction training at Management Training Institute, Ranchi, we went to our respective places of posting. In my case, it was Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).

During our induction training of one year, we were to go to different departments for familiarizing ourselves with different functions. So on one of these visits, we went to a lady HR officer. After understanding the functioning of her department over a cup of tea, I complimented her on leading a core HR department in a Steel Plant Personnel Unit. I compared it to boring job of Training Department to bring out the contrast. She maintained a poker face. It was later when we came out of her room, that one of my batchmates told me that the husband of that HR lady works in the Training Department of same steel plant. The whole group had a good fun at my predicament.

When the first year was over, we were to appear for our placement interviews to decide which department we could join. Luckily I had topped the batch in our Steel Plant so I was hoping to get the department of my choice viz. Public Relations Department. In the interview were two senior officers from Personnel Department, one from HRD/Training and the PR Head of Steel Plant. When I told that I wanted to join PR Department, one of the Personnel Officers asked, "But you have done PG Diploma in HRM. Why don't you join HRD?" My response was, "The kind of HRD practiced here in Steel Plant is nothing like we studied in our theory. Here HRD is limited to training only." I got my desired posting. But on my first day in PR Department, the PR Head told me, "First thing you need to learn in PR is to use the right words. In your placement interview, you criticized HRD in front of HRD officers. There are better ways of saying things." It is then that I realized my mistake. But I was just 27 then.

Another episode happened around 10 years back. I had attended the classical concert of a lady. I did not like it, maybe because of no training and taste of such music. After a few days, an event management agency suggested the name of the same lady for a programme. I was going to criticize her but don't know why I stopped myself at the very last moment. Later on I got to know that the lady was related to a senior bureaucrat and the event agency guy was her relative. Near escape indeed from a career suicide.

There are many such stories from my personal life also, but these are the stories from work I could recollect.